On December 10th, the European Commission issued the Environmental Omnibus Communication entitled – Simplifying sustainable competitiveness – and accompanying legislative proposals.
The Communication recognises the need for environmental protection as the health and well-being of Europeans is a cornerstone of the resilience of the EU’s economy and strategic autonomy as it underpins the availability of sufficient and clean resources.
At the same time, simplification measures are needed in order to boost the competitiveness, strategic autonomy and decarbonisation of the EU economy. The Commission therefore targets reducing administrative burden by at least 25% for companies and even up to 35% for SMEs, while not jeopardising the EU’s climate targets.
By allowing faster and better environmental assessments that are needed for permitting, the proposed Omnibus is complementary to other EU policies such as the Grids Package.
A key priority of the package is to speed up and further digitalise environmental assessments and permitting as the Draghi report highlighted that permitting procedures complicate projects related to the deployment of new power supplies and grids.
The Communication also highlights potential future simplification initiatives on which the Commission is currently reflecting such as revisions of the REACH chemicals legislation, the Water Framework Directive and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.
